Draco watched from the corner of his eye as Hermione slammed her book shut, and fled the library. While that was mildly concerning, he was fairly sure that she was probably just going to go back to her room. She was still in the period of adjustment, and it couldn't have been terribly easy for her. Still, she was dealing with it beautifully so far, and he couldn't have been more proud of her. Of his Hermione. Ten or so minutes passed, and he felt the light buzz of the Manor's Wards across his skin alert him that she had left the Manor.

Draco shrugged it off. She was probably just going through the gardens then. It wasn't that much to worry about. Besides, going after her when she was probably trying to reconcile the lies of the Order with what he had been telling her, how he had been treating her, would just confuse her even more, and he didn't want to overwhelm her.

He returned to his book, until another prickle alerted him that she had gone past the maze. Shit. She was headed towards the wards.

When he had taken her from Hogwarts, Draco had changed the outer wards of the Manor, so that Hermione could enter them freely. Unfortunately, it meant that she could also exit freely. Which wouldn't have been as big of a problem as it was now, if Potter and Weasley hadn't been camped out in the woods that surrounded the outer layer of the wards, waiting to kidnap his witch. So they could try and contaminate her again, to reverse all of the work Draco had been putting in since June to fix her.

Draco grabbed his wand. "Point me, Hermione!" His wand spun in his hand, and Draco followed the direction of the wand, until it started spinning again when he was halfway down the main hall of the Manor. The tip pointed towards a pair of French doors that led to the gardens, and Draco shoved the doors open, not slowing his pace for a second. The wand spun again, and Draco tore through the garden, and past the maze.

The past two Quidditch seasons, Draco had been Captain of the Slytherin team, and his first action as Captain was that he started making everyone on the team run five miles, every day. While that exercise had been purely an attempt to improve the team, Draco couldn't have been any more grateful that he had started that, as the grounds of the Manor that were protected by the outer wards sprawled out in nearly four miles in each direction. He was able to easily chase after the direction Hermione had gone in without breaking a sweat.

As he cleared the top of a hill, he could feel the buzz of the outer wards. He looked down at his wand, to see if it had started pointing in any other direction, but it stayed stubbornly straight. Then there. There was his Hermione, collapsed against a tree. She was just on the edge of the wards - another five feet and Potter and Weasley could grab her so easily. But worse, even from a distance, Draco could tell that her whole body was shaking.

"Oh, darling," he murmured.

Draco ran the rest of the way, and neared Hermione cautiously. Her breaths were more like rattling gasps, and it seemed to take all of her energy for her to breathe.

"Hermione," he called softly.

She didn't look up, still caged in her own personal hell.

"Hermione," he repeated, a little louder. Still, there was no response.

Draco crouched down, so that he was at level with Hermione, and placed his hands gently on her arms. "Hey. Hey, hey," he said softly, trying to soothe her. He looked down at her hands and realised that they were shaking relentlessly. Draco put his hands around hers, trying to stop the trembling.

"Hey, it's alright, Hermione. It's alright." He took in a deep breath. "I need you to open your eyes and look at me, Hermione. Can you do that?" Her eyes flew open, locking on his face, although they seemed to be far away. He dipped into her mind ever so slightly, and was barraged by a hurricane of incoherent thoughts. The only one that made sense was her desperately trying to breathe.

"Hermione," Draco said slowly, "I'm going to count to ten, and on each number, we're going to breathe in and out together, slowly. Okay? One. Breathe in, and breathe out," he said gently. Her eyes seemed to finally lock in on his own, and they seemed to calm, if only just a bit. Hermione took in a breath that was more coordinated than the desperate gasps of moments ago, although her breath was shaky at best. "Two. Breathe in, and breathe out." Hermione breathed in again, this time, a little more stably. "Three. Breathe in, and breathe out. Four. Breathe in, and breathe out. Five. Breathe in and breathe out." Her breaths started to stabilise. "Six. Breathe in, and breathe out." On six, Hermione's eyes focused on his own, and relief washed over her. She grabbed at his wrists frantically, clinging onto him like she couldn't bear the thought of letting him go. "Seven. Breathe in, and breathe out. Eight. Breathe in and breathe out. Nine. Breathe in, and breathe out." On eight, the trembling in her hands began to slow, and on nine, they stopped. "Ten. Breathe in, and breathe out."

Draco dipped into her mind, and this time, it was much more clear, much more coherent, but she was absolutely exhausted. Draco drew out of her mind. "Do you want me to do that again?" he asked.

She shook her head, just the smallest amount. Draco smiled softly at her. She was alright, she wasn't hurt. That was what was most important. The next item of business was figuring out if Potter and Weasley had heard what had just happened.

Draco looked up, searching the woods for any sudden movement, and to his horror, he saw two figures begin to emerge from the trees. Potter and Weasley. Fuck. He needed to do something about that. While they wouldn't be able to get through the wards, they would be able to make noise, alerting Hermione to their presence. They would then spew their poisonous lies and try to turn Hermione against him, and that simply wasn't an option.

"I'm going to cast a few spells on you to see how your heart rate is doing, is that okay?" Draco asked, maintaining his calm. He didn't want to alert her that there was something approaching from behind her that needed to be taken care of, so acting as normal was paramount.

The moment she nodded, he immediately took his wand from his holster, and cast a non-verbal Silencio around the area, so that Hermione wouldn't be able to hear the two Gryffindors. Then, he shot a quick Expulso at them, causing them to slam backwards into the trees. That bought him some time. He returned his attention to Hermione, checking her vitals for anything wrong. Her heart rate, while high, was slowing and returning back to what it normally was, and Draco let out a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was keep Hermione from seeing the two. He looked back at her, and thankfully, she had been anxiously fiddling with her hands, rather than watching what he had been doing. "Alright. I think your heart rate is returning to normal which is good. I don't think you should be walking right now, but we should be getting back to the Manor. I can carry you, if that's alright."

Hermione slowly nodded her head, and Draco picked her up with caution. He didn't want to shock her with any sudden movements back into what he had just gotten her out of, but he also didn't want her to be able to see over his shoulder - to be able to see Weasley or Potter, who were currently getting to their feet unsteadily.

The moment that Hermione was tucked safely into his arms, clinging to him with her head curled into his chest, Potter and Weasley started running towards the ward line, shooting spells at him frantically, but each bounced off the boundaries like it was nothing.

As Draco stood up, Potter and Weasley ran into the wards, and were thrown back a few feet. Their screams and shouts were rendered completely mute with the silencing spell, even though they didn't seem to realise. Weasley scrambled to his feet, going red in the face, and began to throw himself against the ward, desperately trying to get through, again and again. Each time the wards would throw the Weasel backwards, with a variety of spells, with increasing increments of pain. The fifth, of course, was the cruciatus curse. Draco watched with a smile as Weasley slammed into the ward the fifth time, and reared back, screaming in pain. He writhed upon the grass, his back arching and his entire body contorting in agony. While Draco would've loved to hear Weasel's screams, now wasn't the time - not with Hermione in such a fragile state. He looked down at his witch, who was still buried into his chest, with no desire to let go - like she was finally beginning to recognise that he was the one who cared for her, who wanted the best for her. Not Potter, and certainly not Weasley.

While Weasley was so stupidly trying to get through the wards with brute force, Potter was throwing spell after spell at the wards, each bouncing off, one after the other. Eventually, Potter got careless, and one of his slicing hexes caught him on the rebound, and slashed diagonally across his face, blood streaming from one of his temples to the lower side of his jaw. Potter tried to stem the flow of blood with a healing spell, but the spellwork was lackluster at best, and the skin only partially knit back together, and Draco could tell that it would scar badly. Draco wanted to laugh - Potter truly would become Scarhead now. Potter looked at his two friends, misery etched across his face; first at Hermione, who was tucked into Draco's arms, completely unaware of anything going on, then Weasley, who had tears streaming down his face, as he cried out in anguish, and then finally back at Draco.

Draco smirked at Potter. 'She's mine,' he mouthed, hoping Potter wasn't too dim to not be able to his lips. To his delight, Potter seemingly got the message, and angrily shot one last spell at Draco, before turning back to Weasley, on whom the curse was finally starting to taper off on. The red-headed boy was still twitching wildly, and with one final scowl, Potter turned his attention away from Draco and Hermione, and towards Weasley, trying to help his friend to stop convulsing.

Draco turned around and started to carry Hermione back towards the Manor. Even still, with her silence, Draco felt triumphant. Here she was, in his arms, awake and wanting to be there. With her clinging to him, unwilling to let go, with Potter and Weasley injured just behind them. While Draco suspected that Hermione would fight this development the next day, it was still a large step in the right direction. With his witch continuing to remain silent, Draco had nothing to do but to think.

What the hell had Wealsey and Potter done to Hermione that she was having an episode where she felt unable to breathe, over two months after having last seen the two? How deeply rooted were the insecurities that they had planted? And then they dared to try and come and steal her away, for what? Just so that they could make it worse? It was one of their worst offenses yet, and it had taken everything in Draco to just let the two of them live in relative peace. Draco took at least solace in the knowledge that he and his Godfather and family would punish the two to the extent that they deserved the moment that Draco returned to work.

After a while, Hermione finally looked up, and started tugging on a lock of her own hair. "I took off my shoes. Before you came. They -they felt too tight," she confessed, her voice soft. "We should go back and get them. They - they're probably going to be dirty though. I - I'm sorry."

No - there was no way that they were going back there, not while Potter and Weasley were prowling about. "Hey," Draco said gently, "It's okay. We don't have to go back and get them. You've got other shoes, and I can purchase you the same ones again if you liked that pair."

"Oh. Okay, thank you."

Why did she seem so embarrassed that she had discarded her shoes? He could buy her thousands of pairs of shoes, just to make her happy. He could afford it easily. He was a Malfoy, for Merlin's sake, not a Weasley. That was another thing that he would have to help her adjust to, from only knowing the Weasleys as a wizarding family. It was like comparing a gnat to a tiger - one was quite obviously better than the other, as it was deemed by nature. And as such, it was a sin against nature that a family of gnats would try to drag a tigress down to their level, to keep her ignorant of what nature intended.

Hermione, after a bit of silence, spoke again. "I tore up a bit off the grass, too."

"Don't worry about it," Draco assured her. A moment later, a memory flashed into his head; of the time when Hermione had been crying on the seventh floor. It seemed far too similar to what had happened for Draco's liking. Was this a common occurrence? Had Weasley and Potter caused her to go through this more than just this once? What had they done to her? How badly had they hurt her? "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"No," Hermione said, in a small voice. "Thank you though."

Was she still protecting her abusers? The two pathetic excuses for wizards, that had caused her so much strife? What had they told her, what had they conditioned her into believing?

"It's… it's just something that happens to me sometimes." She paused. "Nobody's ever seen it happen to me before though."

Draco stared stonily at the approaching Manor, as he fantasised about ripping Potter and Weasley's poisonous tongues out of their heads.

"For a while, at first, I thought that I was going mad. And… and usually I think that I'm going mad, when I'm in the middle of one."

They had made her think she was going mad? That she was the one in the wrong?

"It feels like I can't breathe and the world is collapsing in on me."

"Do other people know about them?" he asked. Did Weasley and Potter even care about the damage that they had done?

Hermione shook her head. "No. I didn't want to worry anyone."

Draco blew out a breath, composing himself. She didn't want to 'worry anyone.' She didn't want to 'raise a fuss'. She didn't want to be a 'burden' on the two that had put her in this position in the first place. When she was easily worth a hundred of them.

"What did you do then, normally, to get out of one?"

"I don't. I just wait until it's over."

Draco seethed. She just normally had to sit them out? To feel as if she was unable to breathe?

"How long does it usually last for?"

"Depends. Sometimes ten minutes. Sometimes an hour. Time never makes sense when I'm having one."

They put her through that, for ten minutes to an hour at a time, without break?

"And how often do they happen?"

"Sometimes a couple times a week. Sometimes once a month. It depends." Draco suddenly had to control his anger as they passed by the maze. A couple times a week, they put her through this hell? Her voice cut through his cloud anger. "Thank you, though," Hermione said quietly, "For helping me through it. I… I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem."

"But it is -"

"You are not a problem, Hermione," he said firmly. Hermione didn't respond. "Really. I mean it. I'm sorry it happened to you. That I wasn't there earlier." And he meant it. Draco was sorry that he hadn't been able to rescue her sooner. That he had allowed her to be left with Potter and Weasley for that long.

"Don't apologise. It's not your fault that there's something wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you," Draco promised. How did she not realise that she was perfect, just like him? That it only made sense for the best wizard and the best witch to be madly in love?

"Thank you," she whispered softly.

When Draco deposited Hermione into her bed, she fell asleep almost immediately, completely exhausted from her episode. For a few minutes, Draco sat on the edge of her bed, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, how her forehead relaxed, and her face released the tension that it had been holding. She looked peaceful. Just how she should look at all times. Just how she would have looked at all times, were it not for Weasley and Potter.

Making sure not to disturb her, Draco got up quickly, and left Hermione's room closing the door behind him. He stormed to his father's office, and sat down, grabbing the nearest quill and parchment, and began to write furiously. He wanted to get this letter written as quickly as possible, so he could go into the nearest town and take out his anger at Weasley and Potter on one of the muggles. There were just a few more months until he would finally be allowed to get his hands on the pair, but his rage from their actions had to be sated somehow.

Dear all,

First, I would like to send my love to all of you. I miss you all, and I am hopeful that I will be able to see you again soon, and to officially introduce Hermione to our family. I know that you all are anxious to meet her properly, as I am for her to meet you.

Unfortunately, there was a slight bump today. Nothing truly detrimental, but all the same, a bump. At one point today, Hermione had an episode, where she began to tremble, and seemed like she was trying very hard to breathe, but couldn't get in enough air. Afterwards, she confessed to me that this was a common occurrence, that took place as often as multiple times in one week. I have no doubt that these episodes were caused by the influence of Potter and Weasley in her life, although she claims that they have no knowledge of these episodes. They have seemingly thoroughly lessened her self-worth to the point of non-existence. Mother, I'm sure that you would be able to instill the self-confidence in her that is befitting of a witch of her caliber. I have no doubt that this will become your latest project once I am able to introduce you and Father to her. While this was just another item of a long list of sins that the two have committed, I'm sure that we will be able to punish them accordingly.

However, this episode was not the cause of my letter. When Hermione had her episode, we were outside, on the edge of the outer-wards. As you know, Potter and Weasley have been camping out in the woods upon our property, just outside of our wards. Hermione unknowingly alerted Weasley and Potter to our presence, and the two came rushing out, to try and steal her away. Luckily, she was completely unaware of them, as her back was turned to them, and I had thrown up a silencing spell, so that we wouldn't be able to hear them either.

While they now definitively know that Hermione is where they suspected her to be, this isn't a problem. They won't be able to break through the wards any more successfully than they have been attempting to do on the daily - that is to say, not at all. The only way that this could potentially affect anything would be if Potter and Weasley were able to manage to communicate to the Order Hermione's location. While the Order would be incredibly easy to fend off, it would be an unnecessary waste of time, and some of their members would die, instead of being sent to Azkaban, which would be a bit of a waste. I believe that the best way to combat this would be to intercept any form of message that the two would try to send. I would do it myself, but I do not want to leave Hermione alone for very long after an episode like this, lest she have one again.

In more positive news, and something that I hope will make you all laugh, Weasley threw himself against the wards - and was thrown back no less than five times. Of course, you all know what the penalty was for forcibly trying to get past the wards five times in such a short time span. As for Potter, a spell caught him on the rebound, and managed to slice his entire face. While I unfortunately could not hear either of their screams, the visuals were thoroughly entertaining nonetheless, and Weasley's face turned shades of red that I did not think could be possible. Father, you owe me a hundred galleons, as it seems that Weasley has never been under the influence of a Crucio before today, although I do find it surprising that nobody has found him annoying enough to hit him with one him up until this point. Still, if his reaction today was of any indicator, he will be truly fun to break, and I hope that gives you all something more to look forward to. Aunt Bella, you'll just adore the way that he shakes even after the curse has ended - by the time I left the two, he was still twitching worse than Pettigrew.

On a related note, I also believe that we could try an experiment on Weasley as well. Mother and Godfather, I'm certain that you would enjoy conducting this experiment, and I look forward to pursuing more cutting-edge knowledge alongside the two of you. I was struck with inspiration when I saw how his face contorted in agony, and I thought to myself, would there be a way to condition someone into feeling the pain of the cruciatus each time the word 'crucio' is uttered, whether or not the spell is actually cast? Theoretically, it could work, as the curse only affects the neurons, causing the sensation of pain to be given by signals from the brain. I believe it would be an interesting hypothesis to explore, like a continuation of Pavlov's dog. Just something to think of.

I look forward to seeing you all as soon as we are able to, and I hope you all are doing well.

All my love,

Draco